The Lust-Worthy Art of Luxury Design: Creating a Luxurious Home with Dark and Moody Colours
Interiors and Design, Colour Penelope J. Herbert Interiors and Design, Colour Penelope J. Herbert

The Lust-Worthy Art of Luxury Design: Creating a Luxurious Home with Dark and Moody Colours

You’ll love creating a luxurious home with dark colours! Dark colours have long been misunderstood in the realm of home design.

Too often, they’re seen as sombre, drab, or even oppressive. However, when used correctly, dark hues will infuse a home with elegance, luxury, and a sense of dramatic sophistication. Let's explore how you can transform your living spaces with rich, dark colours, creating a stunningly chic and inviting atmosphere.

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The Free E-Book That Will Change How You Use Colour in Your Home (Not Just on Your Walls)
Interiors and Design, Colour Penelope J. Herbert Interiors and Design, Colour Penelope J. Herbert

The Free E-Book That Will Change How You Use Colour in Your Home (Not Just on Your Walls)

When you walk through your front door, do you feel something? Or do you feel… nothing? The interior design equivalent of a firm handshake. If that's your home right now, I wrote ‘Colour Without Apology’ for you.

Colour Without Apology is my free, complete colour guide — and I want to be clear about something from the start. This isn't just a paint guide.

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Room Decorating Ideas for Small Versus Big
Colour, Interiors and Design Penelope J. Herbert Colour, Interiors and Design Penelope J. Herbert

Room Decorating Ideas for Small Versus Big

When it comes to room decorating ideas, most people want to know how to make a space appear either bigger or smaller. That's the way of the world so I've got a few tricks up my sleeve for you.
Successful decorating often revolves around trying to trick the eye. This includes visually manipulating the size of rooms and to hide architectural features or perceived defects.

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Your House Isn't a Gender Reveal Party (And Great Design Never Plays by the Rules)
Interiors and Design Penelope J. Herbert Interiors and Design Penelope J. Herbert

Your House Isn't a Gender Reveal Party (And Great Design Never Plays by the Rules)

The rooms that stop people in their tracks are never the ones where everything matched. They're the rooms where something unexpected happened — where someone made a choice that shouldn't have worked and committed to it so completely that it absolutely did.

The rough plaster wall in the otherwise polished apartment. The Victorian chaise in the mid-century living room. The deeply saturated ceiling in the otherwise pale space. The antique in the renovation.

Tension isn't a risk. Tension is the point.

Your home is allowed to be complicated. So are you.

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No-Vanilla Archetypes: Why Your Home Has a Personality, Not Just a Style
Interiors and Design, Renovating and New Homes Penelope J. Herbert Interiors and Design, Renovating and New Homes Penelope J. Herbert

No-Vanilla Archetypes: Why Your Home Has a Personality, Not Just a Style

For years, the design world has sold you styles — Hamptons, Japandi, Mid-Century, Coastal, that one with all the boucle — as though your home were a costume you choose off a rack. Pick a look. Copy the look. Hope the look still feels like you in eighteen months when the algorithm has moved on and your "warm minimalist" lounge suddenly reads as a dental waiting room.

A style tells you what to buy. It never tells you who you are in a room. And that, my darlings, is the entire problem. So I built something better. Meet the No-Vanilla Archetypes.

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How to Choose a Sofa Colour That Won’t Bore You to Tears
Interiors and Design, Colour Penelope J. Herbert Interiors and Design, Colour Penelope J. Herbert

How to Choose a Sofa Colour That Won’t Bore You to Tears

Forget “safe” grey. Here’s how to choose a sofa colour with personality that actually works in your real-life living room.

It’s the colour of safety, of “good taste,” of not offending anyone. And yet, have you ever sat in a beige room and felt your brain quietly fall asleep? Here’s the uncomfortable truth: your beige sofa might be gently murdering your creativity.

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FIFTY SHADES OF WHITE: Why I’m Breaking Up With Resale-Obsessed Design
Interiors and Design Penelope J. Herbert Interiors and Design Penelope J. Herbert

FIFTY SHADES OF WHITE: Why I’m Breaking Up With Resale-Obsessed Design

I’m breaking-up with resale-obsessed design because “timeless neutrals” are just code for “I gave up.”

The Interior Design World Has a Problem

And no, it isn’t your unapologetically bold rug or slightly extra lamp. It’s the global epidemic of homes smothered in fifty near-identical shades of white, beige, greige and “stone” — all looking like undercooked porridge in different lighting.

This isn’t calm. It’s design sedation. Somewhere between “quiet luxury” and “minimalist chic”, a dangerous myth crept in: if your home has personality, you’re doing it wrong. Spoiler — that’s utter rubbish.

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Tiles With A Pulse: How To Use Bold Tiles On Floors, Walls, Curves And Splashbacks
Wet Areas, Renovating and New Homes, Colour Penelope J. Herbert Wet Areas, Renovating and New Homes, Colour Penelope J. Herbert

Tiles With A Pulse: How To Use Bold Tiles On Floors, Walls, Curves And Splashbacks

Stop playing it safe with white subway tiles and start using tiles as architecture, artwork and attitude.

Tiles are where the renovation stops being polite and starts being interesting. Forget “just a floor” or “just a splashback”—tiles are architecture, artwork and attitude rolled into one. In this first installment of five in our finishes series, we’re turning tiles into the main character of your home, not the understudy.

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2026 Interior Design Trends: Neo Deco, Cool Blue and Opera Aesthetic for No-Vanilla Homes
Interiors and Design, Colour Penelope J. Herbert Interiors and Design, Colour Penelope J. Herbert

2026 Interior Design Trends: Neo Deco, Cool Blue and Opera Aesthetic for No-Vanilla Homes

The 2026 interior design forecast is full of noise, but three 2026 interior design trends have real staying power:

Neo Deco, Cool Blue and Opera Aesthetic interiors. Used well, they are bold, liveable and fiercely anti-beige—and they play beautifully in Australian homes, from city apartments to Adelaide Hills retreats.

2026 Interior Design Trends: Neo Deco, Cool Blue and Opera Aesthetic for No-Vanilla Homes

If 2025 was the year people finally admitted they were bored of beige, 2026 is the year they actually do something about it.

“Safe” interiors are quietly dying; homes with backbone, glamour and personality are stepping into the spotlight as the new standard, not the exception.

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5 Signs Your Home Needs a Redesign
Interiors and Design, Renovating and New Homes Penelope J. Herbert Interiors and Design, Renovating and New Homes Penelope J. Herbert

5 Signs Your Home Needs a Redesign

Your Home is Crying Out for Help! (And No, More Beige Isn't the Answer). Alright, rebels, rule-breakers, and lovers of homes with actual SOUL. Let's have a brutally honest chat. Your house? It’s talking. And if it’s whispering "safe," "inoffensive," or (God forbid) "greige," then it’s basically screaming for an intervention.

These are the Top 5 Design Demons we're slaying.

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Join us on this exciting journey as we empower you to transform your home into a space that reflects your unique style and personality.